Mimosa in flower: the crowning glory of Malta's countryside in spring

As if right on cue to mark the official arrival of spring, Malta’s mimosa is out in flower. Patches of countryside and many roadside verges have been transformed in the past week or two by the golden domes of these shrubby acacias with their showers of droplet-like flowers. Spring in Malta may be short a season, but it packs more punch for it. And the mimosa, along with the lighter yellow English weed and other spring flowers, covers the islands in yellow.

A good place to see mimosa in abundance and photograph it is along the main road from Mosta to Burmarrad (St Paul’s Bay direction). Both sides have long rows of mimosa – with the best spectacle a little way across a field. The verges are wide enough there to stop your car and take a photo.

The mimosa was first described by the renowned Swedish botanist, Carl Linnaeus, in 1773 in Africa. Australia holds the record number of types of mimosa – some 950 out of 1,300. The mimosa has spread to almost any part of the world that offers a warm, temperate climate whether tropical or quite arid, as here in Malta. So while not a native, it’s very much at home, and a welcome alternative to the golden yellow of our ubiquitous stone. Set against spring green, it’s all the more majestic and colourful a shrub.

In some parts of the Mediterranean, mimosa is used as the base for perfumes, though for those prone to allergies or hay fever, it can be an unwelcome irritant. We don’t have it in such volume here in Malta though to harvest and it’s left to its own devices in waste land and fields. Its flowering will soon be over so enjoy it while you can.

Photo: Paul Downey

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TLC by ELC means Malta's roundabouts are oases of green

The place to find green all year round in Malta isn’t the countryside, but our manicured urban areas. Here, roundabouts sport neat turf, irrigation sprinklers (sometimes on in the full heat of summer at 1pm for some reason), evergreen trees and a variety of annual colour – flowering rosemary, gaudily bright pelargoniums and various bedding plants.

The area of even turf can be so large on some roundabouts that kids in the back of my car often remark that they’d make tempting places to play football. Pitches here are Astroturf or gritty dust bowls usually.

Where do Malta’s green fingers come from?
The colour and variety of our roundabouts changes almost monthly as the public-private cooperative, Environmental Landscapes Consortium (ELC), that maintains them, seems to have a constant supply of seasonal plants from its Wied Incita Nursery on the Attard-Mdina/Rabat road. And, of course, replanting all the time keeps people nicely employed. I do wonder at tender pansies out in late February when they can be beaten down in an instant by the vicious rains and high winds we can still have this time of year.

A delight for drivers
Since Malta has large urban areas, with towns cheek by jowl, and a high density of cars on the road per head of population (Malta ranks 5th worldwide for cars per 1,000 people) we drivers spend a lot of time crawling along. So, we’ve have come to appreciate the greening of our urban landscape that has been going on since 2003 when ELC started up. For an interesting read on Malta’s car density issue, click here, and scroll down.

The approach to Valletta along St Anne street, Floriana is always a riot of colour despite registering some of Malta’s worst emission and particulate pollution. The roundabouts in Qormi, another heavily urban area, are a welcome sight as are the planted-up central reservations on the Regional Road. Even several countryside verges have had a make-over.

We’ve also bougainvillea attempting to clad the unsightly walls on the Kappara hill part of the Regional Road. How they will be watered in so dangerous a place till their roots find solace deep below Tarmac, I don’t know.

Urban safety first, urban plants second
In fact, the only negative thing I can say about the whole urban verge and roundabout greening is the traffic hazard posed by the badly parked vans of the maintenance staff or bowsers. It’s quite common to round a bend or emerge from a tunnel and suddenly find a maintenance van parked in your lane without prior warning. A few cones aren’t enough; we need notices saying ‘lane closed, men at work in 500m’, to give us time to change lane safely and avoid screeching to a halt with the potential of a mass of ‘front-to-rear’ bumps. I am waiting for the day an ELC man or a bowser guy is mowed down too.

We like the green, but with a few more cones, some commonsense and caution, we’d like the greening that much more.

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Walk with a spring in your stride at Ghajn Tuffieha and Golden Bay

Spring in Malta is often quoted as being the best time of the year. But is very brief, and sometimes almost non-existent. I always say I go from wearing boots to flip-flops in week in Malta, so abrupt is the changing of the seasons.

The ‘mezzo tempo’, as our neighbours the Italians call spring (and autumn too), is a season rarely worth buying any clothes for. You may find yourself overdressed and sweating one day, or without enough layers the next having assumed the sun would continue. But it’s not worth planning for, as fashion houses do.

Today though was a beautiful day, which would lighten any heart and a day to be out in the blue and warmth as long as possible. We walked the short, but stunning cliff-top path from Ghajn Tuffieha Bay to Golden Bay. It’s our regular spring walk as it has amazing flowers budding up as well as great views. En route, we mulled over ‘how you can tell spring is round the corner in Malta’. Here’s our list of the obvious and the not so:

Everybody rediscovers the countryside.

There are more bikers on the road.

The first lizards emerge.

The cat’s tail starts to twitch more.

The new range of sunglasses shows up.

Tourists start going pink after minimal sun exposure.

You start seeking some shade when sitting out at cafes – but the shade is still a tad chill.

The lads in the ‘festa’ building are there more often renovating old decorations for the coming summer.

The green slime on limestone walls and stone floors starts to disappear.

It hasn’t rained for two weeks.

Lidl supermarket’s special offer days include gardening equipment – gloves, trellises and watering cans.

What’s left of the fields start to sparkle in yellow English weed and red poppies.

The Eurovision song contest is back on the agenda.

Heads peer down wells to determine water levels.

The cafes on the beach start getting repainted.

People start washing their cars.

Householders start inspecting peeling paint on doors and windows

Some people think about fasting for Lent.

The light is just beautiful. The sky is cobalt.

Low-cost airlines now offer more times and routes but seasonally adjust their fares.

Working parents realise there’s only one more full term before the long summer holiday, and start thinking of summer schools!

Spring hunting debates rumble.

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An old greenhouse - sadly not the only house Malta's centipedes inhabit

This article is about centipedes. And while this isn’t that appealing a topic, it will have a familiar ring to anyone living in Malta, particularly during the rainy, humid months of autumn to late spring. If you live in an old, stone house with pot plants, a patch of soil or rubble walls around you, then the black centipede will be your house mate for the winter. I live with plagues, and I mean plagues, from October to around mid April, when the stone finally begins to dry out. Then, in peak summer months, I find (fewer) centipedes in the house – but they’ve worked out inside is far cooler and damper than out when it’s 40 degrees C plus. But right now, I dread venturing out on my back patio after dark to pick a herb I need in the cooking. The stone is simply seething with the things.

I am writing this post to illuminate anyone like me who hasn’t quite cured the problem of how to rid premises of them, and also to assuage the fears of any unsuspecting tourist who may find one in a rented property, or, dread of dreads, in a hotel room.

If you have close fitting windows and doors, you may rarely come across one. If you do, rest assured they are harmless, if rather ugly. Internet research reveals them to be the Black Portuguese Centipede, and the majority of references to them as ‘pests’ come from Australian sources. Apparently, the creature arrived as an unwanted guest aboard a ship in around 1950, and has now colonised most of Southern Australia. Hardly anyone in the Mediterranean has commented on them – I think we’re just so used to them.

I am sure my son has a kiddies’ story that has a nice, caricature-style drawing of a centipede in it. And there’s Roald Dahl’s ‘James & the Giant Peach’ centipede of course. But my slithering companions are not nice. Woe betide if you step on one. Quite apart from the massive crunch, they leave an indelible stain on the limestone floor, and give off a really ‘orrible pong’. I was in an upmarket interiors shop in Sliema earlier this year and smelled their unmistakable smell – I, or another client had just done the honour of stepping on one.

How to cull their numbers
Not easy this one, but a quick way to stem numbers and hatching is to make sure you sweep up regularly all leaf and organic debris littering your patio. They are herbivores and thrive in leaf mould and damp conditions. Lift pots up – incredibly they sneak under them very easily however tight the pot is to the ground. I found an Australian company that does a kind of frictionless compound that you can apply as a strip along under doors ledges and right along the wall for a few inches. I am not sure it’s available in Malta, but here’s the link. On my rugged stone, I’d need a good few pots to remove the friction those centipedes’ legs love to move on.

For an amusing – if that’s the right word – low down on these kritters, see an American in Malta’s story here.

Photo: Mohamed Dabub

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The grass is often greener elsewhere, but Malta's should still deserve our protection

One of our regular contributors, Antonio Anastasi, asks while on a recent trip to ‘green’ Bavaria why Malta’s environmental vision still seems so influenced by buildings not nature.

I always look forward to getting to Germany each January. Not only because I will be spending some time with my girlfriend, but also because I simply love how beautiful a winter can be. Winters in Bavaria are cold, crisp on most days, and simply magical when under a blanket of snow.

Unfortunately, it lacks the colours we have in our winter, when nature awakens after a long sleep in the arid, sometimes breath-taking heat of our summer.

As the plane takes off from Luqa, banking to starboard side, I get a bird’s eye view of the south-west coast. The sight of that tapestry of fields in all its different hews of brown, green and yellow warms me. The colours from up high fill me with a pride and love for my country, as strong as is the nostalgia for what was, and of the little left we seem to be imminently losing.

As the plane banks to cross the country south to north sadness follows, as Malta reveals itself here as one massive, over-built construction site that diminishes the grandeur and beauty of our cultural and natural ‘inheritance.’

On arrival the other end, driving from Munich airport to Dachau, I am immediately reminded of why I love being in Bavaria. Their care and respect for the environment, both natural and architectural, sometimes makes me feel ashamed of how we manage, or don’t manage, our country.

Probably it has to do not just with how they look at things, but more to do with their vision of how to go about things. Here’s their vision:

“The Bavarian State Ministry of the Environment and Public Health (StMUG) was created [...] on October 30, 2008. Its field and scope of work are unique in Germany. The Ministry is responsible for the sustainable protection of man and the essential prerequisites for human life: in other words for the protection of nature and landscapes, soil, water, air and climate, public health and food safety, animal health and the protection of wildlife, as well as protection against radiation and reactor safety. The State Ministry of the Environment and Public Health is Bavaria’s Ministry for Man and the Environment.

Ministry For Man and the Environment? Now there is a concept! Another concept that is poles apart from our environmental management is the Bavarian Forest National Park’s philosophy, which is “Let Nature be Nature”.

When looking at Malta’s ministry for the environment mission statement, which is more a political statement and less a mission statement, one cannot but feel that perhaps we lack the wisdom to see the environment not as something to be bent, to be removed, to be supplanted and if necessary destroyed, for the convenience of man, but rather as something to enhance our quality of life.

Just two very simple examples.

How often have trees been cut down in Maltese streets, village squares or even countryside? How many of our modern living areas or even our older towns and villages for that matter have extensive green-lung areas within them. Do not EU directives recommend these green areas and free spaces within our residential and urban environments too?

I remember around the early 80s the Malta government and an Austrian company had a solar energy research station in Marsaxlokk. Yet today, some 30 years later, I see more photovoltaic and solar energy panels in any Bavarian street than I see in the whole of Malta.

It is this lack of vision, that gives us weak environmental policies and allows us to build a state-of-the-art General Hospital without thinking of it ideally using renewable energy at the outset rather than as an afterthought.

Photo: Martin Brightwell

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Il-Mizieb: 20th century and man-made maybe, but worthy of its name as a wood

One of the most common observations made by foreigners visiting Malta concerns the island’s lack of trees when compared to their countries. To the outside observer, Malta appears as a treeless, arid landscape where even the few trees around seem short, stunted and windswept.

It was not always like this of course. Before the advent of prehistoric man, Malta possessed a rich tree cover, which was slowly but steadily cut down and cleared either for use as fuel or to create agricultural land. Today, very few remnants of the original Maltese forest survive, foremost amongst which there is the small oak grove known as Il-Ballut tal-Wardija which contains a handful of one thousand year old oak trees which provide direct continuity with their prehistoric predecessors.

Over the centuries, there have been some attempts to reintroduce woodland to Malta, with the most famous being that of Buskett, where the Knights of St. John designed and created a small wood in which they could hunt imported deer and boar. Buskett is today Malta’s foremost woodland and is capable of self regeneration, implying that nature has taken over from what was originally a man-made environment.

Mizieb: Malta’s northern woodland
A more recent woodland creation took place in the 1970s on what used to be an exposed ridge in the northern part of Malta, specifically Mizieb, lying between St Paul’s Bay, Manikata and Mellieha.

The ridge was extensively landscaped even through the use of explosives to blast the solid rocky surface so as to enable the newly planted trees to dig their roots deep and thus find sustenance and water especially during the parched summer months.

What trees you’ll find there
Over the past thirty five years Mizieb has thrived and matured and has today grown to constitute one of Malta’s finest stretches of woodland; well worth a visit and a walk in an unusual Maltese habitat. The site consists almost exclusively of Aleppo Pine trees, the Maltese znuber although one also finds other varieties of trees including olive and carob. The predominance of pine means that the ground is littered with a fragrant layer of pine needles.

Who maintains the woodland?
In the late 1980s, Mizieb was granted to the Hunters’ Federation as a location for bird hunting and remains to this very day under the Federation’s management. One positive outcome of this is that the place is generally well maintained and free of litter, although the signs of hunting activity are there for all to see: ranging from hides to spent cartridges. This arrangement with the hunters means that the place is to be avoided during the open season as there is active shooting taking place. Outside the season, however, it is open and safe. During the cooler months the place is also popular with picnickers, especially during the weekends.

How to get to Mizieb
The best way to reach Mizieb is through the road which bisects it, and which runs perpendicular with and links the Mellieha bypass with the Xemxija-Ghajn Tuffieha road. Where this road reaches Mizieb, there is space for parking with the opportunity of taking either the east or west entrance to the wood.

The east entrance leads all the way to Xemxija. You can either take the middle pathway and walk through the tree cover or alternatively walk around the path ringing the site. Both offer interesting experiences, with the former giving the sensation of walking through a wood and the latter offering beautiful vistas of Wardija Ridge, St. Paul’s Bay, Mistra, Selmun and Mellieha.

The west entrance similarly contains a number of pathways which either take you though the trees or else afford beautiful vistas of the Pwales and Mizieb valleys until the woodland ends in the outskirts of Manikata.

When to visit
I prefer visiting Mizieb between December and April as it is at its most verdant. The light of the low sun penetrating the dense tree cover, the seasonal flora (ranging from various mushroom types after a wet spell to beautiful spring flowers) and the sweet smell of pine resin are all experiences which one does not commonly encounter in Malta.

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Winter's crowning glory: the Cape Sorrel

One of the most common flowering plants at the moment is the Cape Sorrel which grows abundantly in most types of ground.  This plant is so well spread in Malta that one would automatically assume it’s a native species.  The truth, however, is that it’s only been on the Islands for two hundred years.

The Maltese call the Cape Sorrel Haxixa Ngliza; literally, the English plant.  It is also called Qarsu from the Maltese word for sour, due to the sour-taste of its stalk which can be chewed for an acidic sensation.  The plant is in fact a strong source of oxalic acid.

The Cape Sorrel which we today take so for granted as part of our winter landscape, is in fact of South African origin from the Cape area.  This area, source of so many modern day quality wines, boasts a Mediterranean climate which makes one understand why the Cape Sorrel adapted so easily to the Maltese environment.

Why do we call this plant the “English Plant”?  According to tradition, the plant was introduced to Malta in the first years of British rule by an English lady who was convinced of its ornamental qualities.  The lady gave a few samples to the curator of the Argotti Botanical Gardens in Floriana but the plant subsequently escaped from the gardens and proceeded to spread across the Maltese countryside at a very fast pace.  So fast was its spread that within a few decades it had established itself as Malta’s foremost wild plant, surpassing the local crown daisy.

As if this was not enough, the plant eventually also managed to escape from Malta and spread along the entire Mediterranean basin and up the Atlantic coast of Europe to colonise even parts of South Devon in the United Kingdom!  It is an amazing fact when one considers that a few samples from South Africa that managed to take root in Floriana eventually spread over such a huge territory.  All the European Cape Sorrels in existence today may lay claim to being relatives of the Floriana specimens originally introduced by the English lady two hundred years ago.

Another interesting observation relating to the Cape Sorrels of Maltese origin is that since the original specimens introduced by the lady were all of the same gender, the plants only reproduce asexually, that is without producing seeds.  The Cape Sorrel in Malta, the Mediterranean and Europe in fact only reproduces through bulbs of the same gender as the original.

The Haxixa Ngliza is so common that one rarely ever stops to notice it.  In some places it literally forms carpets of delicate flowers that light up in a fluorescent yellow once bathed in sunlight.  The flowers close at night to reopen again once in the sun’s rays.  It is at its peak from late December to February.  So do stop and have a good look at this unassuming invader which has so easily established itself as part of our natural landscape, and which has used this small archipelago as a springboard to launch an even bigger colonisation of an entire region!

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Maltese stray cat: easy to feed, and breed.

I had a stray, or abandoned dog on my doorstep the other day. I saw it when I took my son to school, and hoped it would be gone when I returned. It wasn’t, but it had by midday. Selfishly, I felt relieved. It did cross my mind in those intervening hours though what to do with it – whether to turn a blind eye, bite the bullet and take responsibility and take it to a shelter, vet… or where?

Here, Annabel Mallia examines the issue of strays on our streets and our choices.

Have you noticed how many street cats there are under nearly every parked car, on benches, on the tops of rubble walls and lurking, ready to shred your rubbish bag as soon as you deposit it outside? And dogs too, weaving their way in and out of rush-hour traffic?

I like dogs and cats – don’t get me wrong – but Malta has a stray animal problem that seems irresolvable. Many people have dogs and cats which they look after well; others claim ownership of a pet but do not look after it as they should. The once cuddly ‘pet’ soon grows up and as an adult feline, it’s capable of producing one or two litters each year. Left to themselves, cats breed like wildfire and become a nuisance to us and, possibly, a danger to our health.

Some people leave food for cats in the street. They mean it kindly but a well-fed cat is more likely to produce healthy kittens which no one wants and which, left to themselves, will grow up to produce kittens of their own. A nationwide education programme is needed to increase public awareness about neutering animals since this is the first step in dealing with the growing number of street animals.

People who no longer want to take responsibility for a cat or dog, or who cannot afford to keep it, sometimes dump it in the countryside. At Ta Qali and Hal Far, for example, there are packs of stray dogs. Some are domesticated and friendly, but have been abandoned by their owner. They may have fleas or ticks which pose a threat to our health. They also pose a traffic hazard as all too often a car will screech to a halt or veer to avoid a stray animal. Animal shelters are full to overflowing with abandoned animals. We need to limit the stray population for their and our sakes and discourage the breeding of unwanted animals.

There must be a national programme to encourage neutering of stray animals. For males it is a minor operation and not expensive; females take a little longer to recover and the operation costs more. The SPCA and other organisations encourage the systematic neutering of animals. If people can’t afford the vet’s bill they can be assisted by charities such as Happy Paws.

This well-organised charity has two shops – in Santa Venera and at Marsascala. If you care for stray cats you can apply for a Happy Paws membership card which will entitle you to free treatment for them.

Animal lovers may object saying that it is cruel and unnatural to neuter an animal. But by feeding animals in the street and making them strong we encourage them to breed and the population to swell. There is little countryside left for the animals to find their own food and so we create a vicious circle. We do not want the population of stray animals to grow. We need to limit the number so that we can care properly for a lesser number and make homeless animals a rarity rather than the norm in Malta.

Photo: Gethin Thomas

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Nature's harvest and a field of gold

Following a few weeks of generous rainfall, the transformation of the Maltese countryside is now almost complete. A carpet of green covers the open ground as memories of the scorching summer fade and cooler temperatures set in.

The Maltese countryside is awakening and over the coming months will be rewarding us with wave after wave of plants which follow each other with clockwork precision. Each plant becomes the dominant species for a predetermined time, until it fades and is replaced by the next in line.

Considering the relative ease with which most Maltese can enjoy the Islands’ countryside, it’s incredible how ignorant we are about the main plant species that dominate our landscape, many of which we disparagingly group under the horrible Maltese phrase, haxix hazin or weeds. Close observation will reward the keener eyes among us with the rich variety of our nature. A Finnish friend of mine finds it amazing that the exotic herbs which he buys in the shops back home grow wild and ignored on Maltese country lanes and even pavements!

One such plants is wild rucola, rendered popular by the world’s love affair with Italian cuisine. Many of us purchase the plant’s leaves, duly imported from Italy, from the supermarkets and are little aware that our countryside is literally teeming with this plant for most of the year from October onwards.

The proper nomenclature of wild rucola is Perennial Wall-Rocket and it is known in Maltese as Gargir isfar. It is an erect mustard-like plant with many branching stems that may exceed half a metre. It grows in clumps on the ground in a variety of habitats and is very commonly found on roadsides and disturbed fields. It has long leaves as described by its Latin name Diplotaxis tenuifolia where the latter term literally translates into “slender leaf”. The foliage of the wild rucola is aromatic when crushed. On top of the branches of the stem are bright yellow flowers with four rounded petals each about one centimetre long.

The leaves of the plant are often are used as an ingredient for salads, although they are considered too strong to be consumed on their own, and are generally tossed with other leaves. It seems to be very well adapted to harsh and poor soils, hence its prevalence all over the Maltese countryside. This species has succulent leaves and is much appreciated in cuisine.

In some areas in Italy, the plant is also cultivated, but it is mostly collected from the wild and sold in small bunches in local markets. The only health warning I have ever encountered with regard to this plant is that it is not to be consumed in large quantities because of a presumably high concentration of nitrates. The most brilliant fact about this plant is that it remains present in the wild between October and the advent of summer, so there is always a fresh supply of its leaves available.

Look for it when you’re walking in the countryside and when you see how much of it there is around, you’ll wonder how you’ve managed to miss it all these years.

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Filfla, finally left alone by man

Look for information about the Maltese Islands and you will invariably be told that Malta is an archipelago comprising five main islands and a host of smaller rocky outcrops. The islet of Filfla is usually found at the tail end of the five, following Malta, Gozo, Comino and Cominotto.

Filfla is a rocky outcrop some seven kilometres to the south-west of Malta and is visible from long stretches of the south-western coastline, especially from Dingli Cliffs. It is linked to the Maghlaq Fault on the main island of Malta and may have been joined to the mainland in the past. Its distinctive plateau shape makes it intriguing, while its distance from the mainland shrouds it in an air of mystery. It is easily visible from two prehistoric temples – Hagar Qim and Mnajdra – and may have influenced Neolithic man’s choice of temple site.

The name Filfla derives from the Arabic filfel which means chilli and is described in some old texts and maps as Piper, Latin for chilli or pepper. The name is mostly probably attributable to its shape given that, with a miniscule two hectares of surface area, it is unlikely to have ever been inhabited or cultivated. You’d be hard pressed to see it as chilli-shaped today; but there’s an explanation for that…

The islet used to be slightly larger and more solid than it appears today, but was pounded to rubble following years of being used for gunnery target practice by the British Royal Navy during the twentieth century.

In spite of its small size, Filfla is a natural haven and plays host to two endemic species of lizard and snail not found anywhere else on the planet. Amazingly, it also supports one of the largest known colonies (five to eight thousand pairs) of the European Storm Petrel, Hydrobates pelagicus melitensis: quite an achievement for an island the size of two football pitches. For the past couple of decades, it has enjoyed the status of ’site of scientific importance’ and is strictly off limits to visitors: a fitting culmination following the depredations it has suffered at the hands of man.

According to some sources the island used to contain a chapel built in 1343 which also maintained provisions for fishermen stranded in bad weather. The chapel was allegedly destroyed in an earthquake in 1856 with all traces disappearing in the bombings that ensued.

So, when in the South West of Malta, do stop and have a long look at Filfla. As in many others things in Malta, it is the ultimate proof that size does not matter, and that even the most negligible of rocky outcrops over here has a larger than life role both in terms of its natural and its historical attributes!

Photo: Leslie Vella.

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